The heavy thuds grew louder, closer, echoing in the vast chamber. Piotr's mouth fell open, his skin yellowed with fright. The parchment register in Jasker’s hands felt suddenly like a burning brand. He couldn't let it be found.
“The nesting straw!” Piotr hissed, pointing to a shadowed alcove where Skov’s abandoned winter bedding lay in a colossal, tangled pile. It was a long shot, but their only chance.
Jasker thrust the heavy tome into Piotr’s arms. “Bury it deep. And be quick.”
Piotr, surprisingly agile despite his bulk, scrambled towards the straw, clawing at the thick, woven strands. Jasker snatched his sire’s field-book from his satchel, tucking it under his tunic. He then moved swiftly to the feed bins, pretending to examine the dried meat scraps, his pulse knocking hard in his temples.
Just as Piotr vanished beneath a mound of straw, the aerie doors swung inward with a resonant groan. Four elite guardswomen, their polished cuirasses reflecting the dim light, strode in, followed by Chancellor Borislav. His expression was a mask of genial concern, but his eyes, sharp and calculating, swept the immense space, lingering for a fraction too long on the disturbed straw pile.
“Beast-healer Korvits,” Borislav’s voice was smooth as river stone, “Her Majesty inquired as to your progress. A simple check, of course.”
Jasker straightened, forcing a calm he did not feel. “As you see, Chancellor. Observing Skov’s appetite. He remains... delicate.” He kept his back to the straw, subtly shielding Piotr’s hiding place. He could almost feel Piotr’s terrified stillness beneath the rough fiber.
Borislav glanced toward the empty perch. “The gryphon needs much rest. One wonders if constant observation is truly beneficial.” A subtle threat, a reminder of his house arrest.
“My methods are thorough,” Jasker replied, meeting Borislav’s gaze, a quiet challenge in his tone. The Chancellor’s smile did not waver, but a coldness entered his eyes. After a few more perfunctory questions, Borislav dismissed the guards and himself, leaving Jasker alone, the tension in the aerie slowly dissipating.
Only when the heavy doors clanged shut did Piotr emerge, pale and trembling, straw clinging to his hair. He clutched the stolen record like a sacred relic. “That was… too close, Master Jasker.”
“Indeed.” Jasker took the binding back, cold bile rising in his throat. “We need to understand this. Properly. Somewhere safe. The Royal Menagerie scriptorium. It holds records of old pacts, beast lore, even exiled mages.”
Piotr navigated the labyrinthine back passages of the Citadel with the ease of a smuggler, leading Jasker through disused flue tunnels and forgotten storage rooms. They slipped into the cavernous repository, a place of hushed air and towering shelves, its silence broken only by the rustle of their stolen papers.
Under the steady light of a brass lamp, Jasker spread the account sheets open on a dusty table. The payments to Torvin Zagar. He then unclasped the leather notebook, turning to the coded entry and deciphering the ink marks. The ‘Dynastic Hex’ and the ‘Beast’s Awakening’.
He cross-referenced, seeking historical Kresovian texts on blood pacts and monstrous transformations, running calloused thumbs over brittle parchment. Drafts from high clerestory slits seeped through his coat, chilling his fingers as the candle melted down. The pieces, once scattered, began to slot together with chilling precision.
“The venom… it’s not meant to kill Skov,” Jasker murmured, the sickening conclusion settling in his gut. Piotr, who had been nervously pacing, froze.
“Not kill him?” Piotr whispered, pale to his collar.
“No. The mage, Torvin Zagar, he specialized in sympathetic magic, in binding souls. The ‘toxin’ is a preparatory agent. It weakens Skov’s natural resilience, making him susceptible to a deeper, arcane influence. It’s a slow-acting ritual component, designed to prepare the vessel.” Jasker pointed to a passage in a centuries-old folio describing rites of weakening. “It binds Skov to the curse, not to death.”
He then traced a finger over the margin notes. “The Dynastic Hex. It demands a bonded beast, an emotional link between creature and master. The venom saps Skov’s resistance, but the *cure*… the cure is the final catalyst.” He looked up, his face etched with a dawning horror. “My healing efforts… they are completing the ritual. The magic demands that the beast be pulled from the brink, its marrow rekindled, but bound to a violent directive.”
He stared at the blotted page. “When Skov is ‘cured,’ the curse will snap shut. He won’t be healed; he’ll be warped into a butcher, driven to hunt Queen Roksana and tear down her line. He will be her executioner.”
Piotr stumbled back, knocking over a stack of dried vellum scrolls. “No! But… you’re trying to save him!”
“And in doing so, I would condemn her. My cure is Borislav’s weapon.” Jasker spoke through dry lips. His world, which had been focused on a single, clear goal – cure Skov, earn freedom – shattered and reassembled into something far more complex, far more terrifying. His new goal was no longer to cure the gryphon, but to save both the Queen and the beast, a task that now seemed impossible.
He gripped his father’s journal, his knuckles white. Borislav hadn’t just tricked him; he had twisted Jasker’s very purpose, turning his healing hands into instruments of destruction.
Before he could speak again, metal scraped stone near the entry corridor. The library door, a heavy oak slab, ground slowly against its frame.
Jasker stiffened, his fingers locking onto the edge of the desk. He expected a sentry, perhaps Borislav himself. But the figure silhouetted in the doorway was taller, regal, her posture rigid, a cloaked presence in the gloom. Queen Roksana Kosciusz.
Her slate-colored gaze carried a hard edge: suspicion, and an unshielded dread. She had tracked him. Her look dropped to the open account, then the moldering vellum, and finally to Jasker’s face.
“Beast-healer Korvits,” she said, her voice low, dangerous, “What secrets are you unearthing among these shelves under cover of night? What are you truly doing to my gryphon?” Her gaze fixed on the open notebook and the stack of heretical lore. “What is this… ‘Dynastic Hex’?”
Jasker stood, his mind racing. There was no escape. No lie could suffice. He had to tell her. Everything.
“Your Majesty,” Jasker began, his voice strained but firm, “Skov is not merely sick. He is a vessel. For a curse designed to end your line. Borislav… he is behind it all. The poison is only half the ritual. My cure… it is the other half.”
Roksana took a step back, her face draining of color. Her suspicion morphed into dawning horror, her perfect composure finally cracking, revealing the depth of her underlying terror. “What do you mean, your cure?” she demanded, her voice rising, a tremor running through it.
“The tainted draught drains Skov’s will, hollowing him out. The rite demands that an apothecary pull him back from the brink, infusing him with renewed vitality. That restoration… that is what triggers the curse.” He saw the understanding dawn in her eyes, stark and terrible. “When I heal him, Your Majesty, he will not be the Skov you know. He will become a monster, compelled to hunt you. He will be used to destroy you.”
The Queen stared at him, motionless. The tallow wick threw long shadows across her hollow cheeks, catching the dark hollows beneath her eyes. Neither of them moved. When she finally spoke, the regal authority had drained away entirely.
“So I must either let my only friend die, or be killed by him?”